Our Visit to Charmingfare Farm

We recently visited Charmingfare Farm in Candia, New Hampshire for their Lighted Winter Wonderland event. This event is held every Friday and Saturday from now until Christmas Eve. The Lighted Winter Wonderland features a horse drawn ride that takes you thru the woods and pasture where you will see various holiday displays and Christmas lights until you reach the "North Pole". At the North Pole you are greeted by holiday costumed characters such as The Gingerbread Man, Frosty the Snowman, The Grinch, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, and others. Santa and his reindeer are waiting for the you in the barn where each child has a chance to talk to him and have their picture taken with him. When you are finished visiting the North Pole, a tractor train ride will take you back to the entrance where you can warm up by the bonfire or check out some of the friendly animals in the barn. The whole experience should take you anywhere from 60-90 minutes. Dress warmly and wear boots.

Our experience with this event was just ok. Check-in was easy enough but we weren't given any instructions on where to go once we walked outside. We didn't see any staff so we just followed the path to the barns we saw. We saw a bunch of Christmas lights in the distance so we just started making our way up there. Once we arrived, we realized we had walked up the back road to The North Pole and had totally skipped the horse drawn ride. There was an employee that was extremely helpful and helped us get on the tractor train ride back to the entrance so we could start over. The line for the horse drawn ride was rather long but I was impressed with how quickly the wait went. They have a total of four horse drawn wagon rides and each wagon holds about 16-20 people. The ride up to the North Pole is about 20 minutes and you will see Christmas lights and holiday displays along the way. It was 34 degrees the night we went so make sure you are bundled up. Bringing a blanket would actually be a good idea especially for the horse drawn ride. There is hot chocolate and smores available for purchase once you get to the North Pole. I was little confused about that because I thought the hot chocolate was a part of the ticket price but I was wrong. The North Pole wasn't as magical as I thought it would be. Our favorite part was actually seeing all the animals in the barn and being able to pet most of them. I'm not sure it was worth the 90 minute drive for us and I'm not entirely sure it's worth the $25 ticket price if you are local. I heard several people say they found a deal on Groupon so I would check that route first before buying online on their website. If I had paid $25 for each of us, I would have been disappointed in the value I received.

**Disclosure - I received free tickets in exchange for a review. All opinions expressed here are my own.